Track and Field Sports (Athletics) , A doping scandal involving several top track and field athletes made negative headlines in 2004. Thrilling competition at the Olympic Games in Athens, however, produced 10 Olympic and 2 world records.

World Indoor Championships

The International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) rescheduled its indoor world championships from odd- to even-numbered years. On March 5–7 Budapest hosted the event as Russians set four new indoor world records and won 7 of 14 women’s events. Tatyana Lebedeva equaled the world record in the triple jump and then improved it twice to post a new indoor world record of 15.36 m (50 ft 4 3/4in); she later won a gold in the long jump, becoming the first athlete to win titles in both events. Pole vaulter Yelena Isinbayeva defeated Russian teammate and rival Svetlana Feofanova by breaking Feofanova’s world record. The Russian women’s 4 × 400-m relay squad cut 0.37 sec from the world record as Natalya Nazarova, who also set a meet record (50.19 sec) in the 400 m, ran the final leg in 49.89 sec, the fastest 400-m relay split ever run indoors. In the men’s competition Swedish triple jumper Christian Olsson equaled the world record, which marked the first time since 1989 that a world record in a men’s field event had been posted at the meet.

Olympic Games

The modern Olympics returned to Greece, the land of their birth, in August, and the shot put was contested at Olympia, site of the ancient Games. The men’s shot put became the first field event in modern Games history in which the gold medalist was decided in a tiebreaker based on the second-best mark. On his first throw Adam Nelson of the U.S. put 21.16 m (69 ft 51/4 in), and Ukraine’s Yury Bilonog nearly equaled the mark with two puts of 21.15 m (69 ft 43/4 in) as Nelson fouled his next three throws. In the last round Bilonog improved to 21.16 m (69 ft 51/4 in) and won the gold after Nelson increased his distance on his last throw but fouled. Russian Irina Korzhanenko dominated the women’s shot put but was disqualified for a positive steroid test—the first of three doping disqualifications for first-place finishers—and the gold went to Cuba’s Yumileidi Cumba.

In the first running final, the men’s 10,000 m, Kenenisa Bekele of Ethiopia won over teammate Sileshi Sihine in an Olympic-record 27 min 5.10 sec. The old record had belonged to Haile Gebrselassie, also of Ethiopia, who finished fifth after having won the event at the two previous Olympics.

Moroccan runner Hicham El Guerrouj finally ended his Olympic jinx. Although he was the world record holder at 1,500 m and the mile and had won 86 of his last 91 finals at those distances, El Guerrouj had never captured an Olympic title. Just the second man, after Great Britain’s Steve Cram, to have qualified for three Olympic 1,500-m finals, El Guerrouj took the lead at 900 m and held off Kenyan Bernard Lagat to take the gold in 3 min 34.18 sec. El Guerrouj competed in the 5,000-m final four nights later, and the Moroccan sprinted past Kenyan Eliud Kipchoge off the last turn and passed Bekele 60 m from the finish to win. El Guerrouj became the first man since Paavo Nurmi of Finland in 1924 to take gold in the 1,500 m and 5,000 m. In the women’s competition Kelly Holmes of the U.K. also won the 1,500 m and 5,000 m, becoming the third woman to accomplish the feat. She took the 800 m in 1 min 56.38 sec as five women dipped under 1 min 57 sec for the first time since 1976.

Isinbayeva appeared unpressed in the pole vault as she cleared the Olympic record height of 4.65 m (15 ft 3 in), but by the time the bar reached 4.80 m (15 ft 9 in), she had missed twice and needed a clearance to stay alive against Feofanova. Isinbayeva flew over that bar and the next at 4.85 m (15 ft 11 in) as Feofanova missed, and she then passed to 4.90 m (16 ft 3/4 in). When Feofanova missed, a jubilant Isinbayeva had the bar raised to a world record 4.91 m (16 ft 11/4 in) and cleared with centimetres to spare.

China’s Liu Xiang (seeBiographies) was the only man to post a world record. In winning the 110-m hurdles, he stopped the unofficial eyebeam clock at 12.94 sec and was well into his victory lap before the reading of the digital finish photo revealed he had equaled the world record of 12.91 sec.

American pole vaulter Tim Mack (5.95 m [19 ft 61/4 in]), Lithuanian discus thrower Virgilijus Alekna (69.89 m [229 ft 3 in]), and Czech decathlete Roman Sebrle (8,893 points) also claimed men’s Olympic records. American 100-m hurdler Joanna Hayes (12.37 sec), Russian high jumper Yelena Slesarenko (2.06 m [6 ft 9 in]), Russian hammer thrower Olga Kuzenkova (75.02 m [246 ft 1 in]), and Cuban javelin thrower Osleidys Menéndez (71.53 m [234 ft 8 in]) were the other women Olympic record setters. Sweeps of all three medals went to the U.S. in the men’s 200 m, 400 m, and long jump. Russia’s sweep of the women’s long jump was the first in a women’s event since 1980. Robert Korzeniowski of Poland won the 50-km walk, becoming the first athlete to have won the event three times.

Facing rumours of banned drug use, American Marion Jones, who won five medals at the 2000 Games in Sydney, Australia, placed fifth in the long jump and did not compete in the 100 m or 200 m. In the 4 × 100-m relay, Jones and teammate Lauryn Williams passed the baton outside the exchange zone, and Jones went home empty-handed.

International Competition

Olsson and women’s 400-m star Tonique Williams-Darling of The Bahamas split the jackpot from the Golden League, a series that offered shares of a $1 million prize to athletes who won their events at all of its six meets. Alekna lost only one Golden League discus competition, to Hungary’s Robert Fazekas in Zürich, Switz., but Fazekas was later suspended for refusing to provide an adequate doping sample at the Olympics. This led some to posit that Alekna was unfairly deprived of one-third of the prize. Olsson had one triple-jump loss outside the Golden League, to Romania’s Marian Oprea in Stockholm, which ended a 29-meet win streak. Williams-Darling won eight major meets in a row but lost her last race of the season at the IAAF World Athletics Final, held in Fontvieille, Monaco, on September 18–19. Qatar’s Saif Saaeed Shaheen (formerly Stephen Cherono) had the top performance at that meet, posting the fifth fastest time ever in the steeplechase, 7 min 56.94 sec. The IAAF named Bekele and Isinbayeva its Athletes of the Year.

Doping

The 2003 discovery of a previously undetectable anabolic steroid, tetrahydrogestrinone (THG), allegedly distributed by Bay Area Laboratory Co-operative (BALCO), an American nutritional supplements and testing company, continued to haunt track and field. Four athletes who tested positive for THG in 2003 were suspended in 2004, including world championship relay medalist Dwain Chambers of Great Britain (two years) and 1,500-m world indoor record holder Regina Jacobs of the U.S. (four years). Americans Kelli White, the 2003 women’s world champion at 100 m and 200 m, and Alvin Harrison, the 2000 Olympic 400-m medalist, admitted to doping and accepted four-year bans that also annulled their results dating back to late 2001. Harrison’s twin brother, Calvin, received a two-year ban for his second doping violation, and his results dating to early 2001 were nullified, which caused the U.S. to forfeit its 2003 world championship gold medal in the 4 × 400-m relay. American Tim Montgomery, Jones’s boyfriend and the 100-m world record holder, was charged with doping and chose to plead his case before the international Court of Arbitration for Sport.

Greece was embarrassed the day before the Games began by events involving Olympic sprint medalists Konstadinos Kederis and Ekaterini Thanou. After missing their second drug test in a week, the pair turned up in a hospital claiming injuries from a motorcycle accident that police called suspicious. The sprinters withdrew from the Olympics and were criminally charged, along with their coach, with obstructing a drug test and giving false information to police. The IAAF filed formal charges against all three in December 2004.

Cross Country and Marathon Running

The Olympic marathons were held on a historically appropriate course from Marathon to Athens. World record holder Paula Radcliffe of the U.K. took an early lead on a hot day in the women’s race until Japanese Mizuki Noguchi surged ahead at 25 km (15.5 miles). An exhausted Radcliffe stopped at 36 km (22.4 mi), leaving Catherine Ndereba of Kenya to chase Noguchi, who won by 12 sec.

A spectator with a history of mental illness ran onto the course just before the 36-km (22.5-mi) mark in the men’s race and knocked leader Vanderlei de Lima of Brazil into the crowd. The stunned Brazilian lost 10–15 sec in the incident and was passed by Stefano Baldini of Italy and Mebrahtom Keflezighi of the U.S. Baldini won the event, and de Lima, who took the bronze, was awarded the Pierre de Coubertin Medal by the International Olympic Committee for exemplary sportsmanship. Kenyans Felix Limo (2 hr 6 min 14 sec) and Evans Rutto (2 hr 6 min 16 sec) between them had run four of the five fastest marathons of the year but were not selected from their country’s deep talent pool for the Olympics.

Ethiopia dominated rival Kenya at the world cross country championships in Brussels. Bekele won both men’s senior races for the third consecutive year. Ethiopia won four of the six individual titles and five of six team titles. Kenya’s only team crown was in the junior men’s division.